The U.S. chemical industry produces a large and growing trade surplus, reaching $31 billion in 2018. Free trade and open markets are essential to growth and job creation in the industry, and they provide significant benefits to the broader economy.

Worker safety is a top priority in the chemical industry. Responsible Care companies have an employee safety record that is nearly five times better than the average of the U.S. manufacturing sector as a whole, and almost three times better than the business of chemistry overall.

From 2009 through 2017, Responsible Care companies averaged less than one OSHA recordable injury or illness per 100 employees. This recordable injury rate is better the retail, agriculture, food store, and general merchandising business sectors.

Together, Responsible Care companies have reduced their recordable injury and illness incidence rates by 66 percent since 2000, making significant progress toward the overall intustry goal of no accidents, injuries or harm to human health.

According to data from the
U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT), close to one million shipments of hazardous materials occur daily in the United States. The safe distribution and handling of chemicals is an important performance indicator for Responsible Care companies, which track hazardous material distribution and report incidents to DOT.

Since 2000, the number of distribution incidents among member companies has declined by 64 percent.

A process safety incident is an unplanned event arising from the manufacturing process that results in a product release, fire, explosion, injury or community event. By managing, tracking and reporting process safety incidents, Responsible Care companies benchmark their performance and set goals for improvement.

Responsible Care companies also demonstrate their commitment to safe operations by implementing the Process Safety Code. The Process Safety Code addresses issues across a division or corporation and includes a company commitment to set process safety expectations, define accountability for process safety performance and allocate appropriate resources to achieve performance expectations.

Starting in 2017, ACC members began using a new methodology for reporting annual process safety incident information. As a result of the change in reporting criteria, data results prior to 2017 are similar, but not identical to data now being collected. Under the API Recommended Practice 754 methodology, Tier 1 process safety incidents are given a severity score ranging from 0-135, 0 being a low severity incident and 135 being the maximum severity score. In 2018, 92 percent of the Tier 1 process safety incidents reported by ACC members were categorized as "low severity."

Responsible Care companies are committed to managing and communicating the impacts of chemical products on human health and the environment. Product safety has long been part of the Responsible Care initiative, and Responsible Care companies work to promote the safe management of chemicals along the supply chain.

That’s why ACC and its members developed the Responsible Care Product Safety Code to drive continuous improvement in chemical product safety as part of the industry’s signature environmental, health, safety and security management system. The Product Safety Code includes a set of 11 Management Practices, through which chemical manufacturers can evaluate, demonstrate and continuously improve their product safety performance, while also making information about chemical products available to the public. As of June 2017, 98 percent of ACC members have implemented the
Product Safety Code according to their required timeline.

Additionally, each ACC member prioritizes its chemicals according to risks, specifically designating high-priority chemicals, using considerations such as uses, exposures, toxicity, production volumes and other relevant factors and makes this information available to the public. For information about the products ACC members manufacture, view the
Product Safety Summary Search Portal.